BROKEN PLANNING SYSTEM

The Peninsula Chamber of commerce has today called on the NSW Strate Government to take immediate action to overhaul the NSW Planning System amidst systemic delays in development approvals and housing starts.

“At a time when all levels of government are lamenting the shortage of housing and housing choice, the very system that provides planning approvals is so complex and outdated that it conspires to work against both housing availability and housing affordability”, said Peninsula Chamber President Matthew Wales.

“You can’t always keep blaming Central Coast Council for the delays and shortfalls when Council planners are expected to work with an outdated system that has been around for 40 years”.

“The assessment of development applications has to address multiple layers of complex statutory planning legislation, biodiversity laws, energy efficiency regulations, local planning controls and community consultation processes”, said Matthew Wales.

“On top of that, Council is struggling to recruit experienced professional staff to cope with the hundreds of development applications it receives every week with town planners expected to wade through 30 to 40 applications at any given time”.

“Not only is the building industry having to cope with a difficult assessment regime, land prices and the cost of construction has gone through the roof making many projects marginal at best”, said Matthew Wales. 

“Sadly, for the developer to deliver the simplest dual occupancy to market now takes close to two years by the time they identify and purchase the land, prepare a development application, gain approval from the Council, obtain a Construction Certificate, build the units and obtain final certificates”.

“Now the industry is facing further layers of oversight with the NSW State Government looking to introduce legislation to extend the powers of the NSW Building Commission”, said Matthew Wales.

“This will give the commissioner’s office to the authority to enter any dwelling while it is being constructed to look for defects on top of all its other existing powers”.

“All the current legislation and building oversight, whilst well intended, is actually grinding the industry to a standstill”, said Matthew Wales.

“Successive governments have repeatedly promised an overhaul of the NSW planning laws but never deliver”. 

“You can fiddle around the edges all you like, but until the NSW State Government gets serious about planning reform, it will never deliver the levels of housing that we need in New South Wales and Council’s like Central Coast Council will never be able to adequately cope with the volume of applications even in these difficult times”, said Matthew Wales.

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